


the wolf on the fold

by nex_et_nox



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 09:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9434261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nex_et_nox/pseuds/nex_et_nox
Summary: Keith checked his hands under the table. They were still human, no claws or purple in sight, but for a brief moment Keith saw the mottled not-burns fading into his skin.





	

_“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold_

_and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold…”_

—The Destruction of Sennacherib, Lord Byron

 

The quintessence burned against his skin, the glove of his paladin suit shredded from being thrown into the glass holding the energy-liquid- _whatever_ -it-was and by the quintessence itself. Keith rolled himself out from the glass, and eyed his hand as he flexed it.

Burns were spread out all over it, but the pain was already fading and it moved well enough. That would have to do, because he didn’t have time in the middle of a fight against a _teleporting Galra_ to bind it; that would have to wait until they were back at the castle.

Keith pushed the strange color of the burns to the back of his mind. In the Green Lion’s mouth, they were still that shade, but then they faded, sinking into his skin, and nearly all the pain was gone with them.

He meant to ask Coran about any side effects the quintessence might have, but Allura had been captured and there was no time. They were all rushing around, preparing for the attack on Zarkon’s main fleet, and in what little moment there was a gap for Keith to push forward and ask, he caught a glimpse of Coran’s face.

He was staring at their course heading, standing at the spot where Allura usually commanded, and Keith couldn’t disturb him. Coran had enough on his mind. He didn’t need to worry about injuries that had already disappeared.

* * *

Keith wouldn’t ever say it out loud, but some guilty part of him was relieved to see Shiro’s wound glowing purple. The quintessence spilling on his hand – it didn’t have to mean anything.

_You fight like a Galra soldier._

That didn’t mean anything either, and if Lance had just tried his hand on the panel it would have shut down the hangar doors as well—

(Being stranded on a planet with his only friend dying and no way to communicate left him too much time to think, too much time to put together little pieces that had been compiling all his life and coming together with alarming speed only since they had been in space. But it _couldn’t_ be.)

The only problem was that the wound was _glowing_ , and unlike Keith’s injuries, it wasn’t going away.

* * *

Days later, Keith unbound the scraps of cloth wrapped around the hilt of his knife and looked at a symbol that should never have been on a human knife.

* * *

"You've got a little purple there," Pidge said, and Keith flinched before he realized she was tracing her fingers in arcs under her eyes.

 _You look tired_ , she was saying.

Keith mumbled something, agreeing with her, and she turned back to her breakfast. Keith checked his hands under the table. They were still human, no claws or purple in sight, but for a brief moment Keith saw the mottled not-burns fading into his skin. He blinked.

Still human.

His hands trembled.

* * *

Keith had always known his parents weren't his birth parents. It hadn't really seemed to matter to him. His father was still his father, his mother still his mother.

He'd had the knife as long as he could remember. He traced the symbol etched into the hilt, and he wondered.

It hadn't mattered who his birth parents were until it suddenly did.

 _You're being paranoid_ , Keith told himself. _It's not – this isn't –_

His thoughts tangled around each other.

It shouldn't be possible, but where else could the knife have come from, if not his birth parents? When the orphanage had taken him in, he’d had it. They hadn't liked it, but they had kept the knife for him, given it to his parents when he was adopted, and they had given it to him in turn, the only connection to the people who had given him up.

(Given him up _to Earth_?)

In fits of curiosity, he had tried searching for the symbol’s meaning when he was younger, running comparisons in all the languages he could think to try, and here was the damning proof that he couldn’t find his answers because it was never a _human_ language he should have been searching for answers in.

 _Stop_ , he thought, gritting his teeth. _Stop, stop. Stop_ thinking _that. I can't be—_

He traced the symbol, face reflected pale back at him from the mirror of the blade. He didn't sleep.

* * *

 _They know you,_ Keith thought. _Even if it’s true, they know you. They wouldn’t turn on you. They_ know _you._

Except – did they really? Shiro was the one that he was closest to, but even if he was friendly with all of the others (except Lance), they weren’t close confidants. Keith had never been very good at getting close to people.

Surely, though, after months working together, after forming Voltron and fighting against the Galra – surely that counted as them knowing him?

 _You don’t even know yourself,_ Keith thought, and one hand balled into a fist at his side. He stared out the window at the stars streaking past.

 _You fight like a Galra soldier_ , Zarkon taunted.

* * *

 _It doesn’t matter_ , he tried to convince himself in the dead of night. His finger slipped on the edge of the knife and he hissed as bright (human, surely it’s human) blood welled up. _You’re their friend, you’re a paladin of Voltron just like them—_

But so had Zarkon been, once.

* * *

The frantic pace of the next several days was almost a relief, if only for how he didn’t have time to sit and think.

The problem came from how tired they all were. They were being run off their feet, Zarkon somehow following them everywhere they went—

_Do Galra know each other? Did he identify me, decide to trace me?_

_Is this my fault?_

—and Keith hadn’t been sleeping much even before that. Not that the other paladins were immune to their own nightmares, but this particular one had been keeping up Keith for weeks now, heart beating in his throat, afraid that at any moment they would discover the monster that he truly was.

(There were Galra fighting on the same side as them – the Blade of Marmora – and if Keith was Galra then he was against Zarkon and his empire as well – but he was scared that wouldn’t be _enough_.)

Hair-trigger vigilance, watching for Zarkon’s ships to show up again, kept making Keith see purple where it wasn’t. He compulsively checked his hand, the weak point that would be the place to give everything away.

Human. Still human.

Every time, he was still human, but there would be a day when he checked and he wouldn’t be.

* * *

Keith was good at pretending that everything was fine, good enough that none of the others questioned him.

Maybe they just didn’t know him enough to notice when he was putting on a mask.

(Shiro was the one he had to hold the mask tightest for, but even he couldn’t see all the way through it.)

Sometimes Keith wanted to scream the truth and all his suspicions at them, to get it all out into the open and over with. Sometimes he wanted to pull Shiro to the side, to beg the Black Paladin to help him.

He didn’t.

* * *

“I would _never_ count on a Galra for help,” Allura said.

 _They can’t be trusted_ , she didn’t say. _There are no good Galra._ _You’ll turn on us, too, when we find out._

Keith swallowed his hope and turned away.

* * *

 _Come unarmed,_ the Blade of Marmora told them.

Keith tucked his knife in his uniform. He was finally going to learn the truth, one way or another.

After that—

He didn’t know.


End file.
